When we left home (Salem, Oregon) on March 20, the weather
was beginning to get warmer and the cherry trees were
starting to blossom. But Berlin was still in mid-winter, it
seemed; rivers were frozen, there was snow on the ground,
and it was cold!

We had never been to Berlin, Dresden, or Prague before, so
we focused on the major attractions in each city. Berlin is
a city of museums, and we each had our favorites. Karen
liked the Gemaldegalerie so much that she went back for a
second visit, and I was fascinated by the Jewish Museum, for
both architecture and contents. We both loved the Pergamon,
and the castles in Potsdam (Sans Souci and New Palace). The
park between the palaces would have been much more beautiful
in spring, but the streams were still frozen, the statues
were covered, and the fountains were dry.

By the time we left Berlin things were beginning to warm up
a little, and in Dresden we saw the first signs of spring.
Dresden is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year and
there are huge banners on many of the large old buildings.
Our top attraction there was the Frauenkirche, newly rebuilt
this year since it was destroyed by bombs in 1945. We took a
day trip to Meissen and toured the porcelain factory there -
it's an amazing place.

With spring came the floods - the Elbe was overflowing its
banks in Dresden, and as our train followed it down into the
Czech Republic (where it becomes the Moldau/Vltava) we saw
more and more signs of serious flooding. In Prague they had
the flood barriers up (newly built since 2002) but they were
not yet in use. The first beautiful sunshiny day we had was
April 1, the day we went to Cesky Krumlov and Castle
Hluboka. We think that Prague has more beautiful buildings
than any city we've seen, and we have the photos to prove
it. A complete report of our stay in Prague, with lots of
pictures, can be found at our website.

Things we learned on this trip:

1. An iPod is a wonderful thing to take along on a trip. We
each had a digital camera, and there were days when both of
us took over 200 pictures. Each night we off-loaded all of
the photos onto the iPod and erased the memory cards. The
iPod stored all of the photos with no problems. Oh, and it's
nice for listening to books, podcasts and music too!

2. A personal guide adds a lot of value to the trip. We were
very fortunate to get Sárka Pelantová, whom we hired for two
days - one in Prague and one day trip to Cesky Krumlov. She
is a terrific guide and greatly increased our understanding
of the Czech region and the people.

3. Travelocity is a helpful and reliable service, in my
experience. We've used them for airfare and hotels for the
last two trips, and we have not had any trouble. I am always
able to find the best rates there.

4. It's good to buy some tickets in advance - like the
Berlin Philharmonic, and the Semper Oper in Dresden. We
would not have been able to get into either one had we not
bought tickets on their web sites before leaving. Events
aimed primarily at tourists - like the marionette version of
Don Giovanni that we saw in Prague - will almost always have
tickets available on the day.

5. Our decision to reduce travel time and stay longer in our
chosen cities proved to be a good one. We found it easy to
make day trips from each of our three cities, and we had
more time for sightseeing since we weren't travelling much.

6. Karen says "stop and smell the roses" - she means that my
lists of planned activities were too long. She enjoys it
more when we take time to stop and relax instead of go, go,
go. And I do too - because I don't get so exhausted. I
promised to add "smell roses" to our future lists.

7. March is too early for northern Europe. Spring starts in
April. Yes, we avoided the crowds and the high season rates,
but we missed out on some beauty.